Juan Orr, 26, maybe of Chico, has libeled two Albion men every which way. Not only libeled them, got them arrested, thrown in jail and, briefly, charged with major felonies.
It all started when Orr appeared at the Redwood Drive-In in Boonville a week ago Saturday, which would have been the afternoon of September 8th.
Orr said he'd been beaten and robbed by “two Americans.” The two gringos had snagged Orr, who is also a gringo, while he was innocently thumbing south on Highway 128. But instead of continuing to drive south, the “two Americans” had instead driven the hijacked hitchhiker up Mountain View Road, west of Boonville, where they beat him until he gave them $800 in cash, his backpack and his cellphone.
And there he was in the Redwood Drive-In, this weepy victim of a violent crime, sobbing and indeed looking kind of red and puffy in the face like someone really had smacked him a couple of times.
Cell phones were produced, 911 called.
The muggers, Orr said, were probably still headed west on Mountain View towards the Mendocino Coast. Maybe if you cops hurry you can catch them where the road comes out at Manchester.
Boonville people were outraged. They were walking around the Redwood Drive-In saying things like, “What the hell? I hope they get those bastards. Who would do such a thing?”
Orr played his audience like Barrymore, managing even to lob a little slander at locals with the claim that "No one would help me. I had to run all the way down the hill because no one would stop."
Coast deputies were alerted to be on the lookout for two robbers headed their way, and very soon, Deputy Paoli had the alleged bad guys in custody. They were identified as Timothy Donald Gitchel and Thomas Joseph Valdez, both of Albion.
If Gitchel and Valdez seemed disbelieving that they had been taken into custody, there was no seemed about it. They were mystified because, as it turns out, they hadn't done anything to get themselves arrested.
Meanwhile, back in Boonville, the Anderson Valley Ambulance had been called to the Redwood Drive-In, and Juan Orr, self-alleged victim of an assault and robbery, was hauled over the hill to the Ukiah Valley Medical Center where he was treated for no injuries and released.
Orr had put on such a convincing show about being a victim of a violent crime that the Boonville ambulance people, experienced at sorting out the real from the unreal, believed him.
But.
But Juan Orr hadn't been hitchhiking.
Juan Orr hadn't been beaten.
Juan Orr hadn't been robbed.
Juan Orr, aka John Orr, had been hanging around Albion for a week or so, panhandling in front of Albion Store and pestering a young girl in the neighborhood to the point where she and her family characterized Orr's unwanted attentions as “stalking.”
Orr had been reported to the Sheriff's Office several times for basically making a major nuisance of himself at Albion, and Albion people wanted him gone.
That Saturday, Orr had shown up at the home of Betty and John Shandel of Albion. Shandel had encountered Orr panhandling out in front of the Albion Store. He'd been beguiled by Orr's story that he needed some help. Shandel said he would trade help for stacking fire wood, and drove Orr and his "brother" up the hill to do some work for money.
Shandels have been on the Mendocino Coast going way back. Mrs. Shandel is a registered nurse. She worked for years in the emergency room at Coast Hospital. RNs, especially RNs who work emergency rooms, can speed read people, and Mrs. Shandel read Mr. Orr's book at a glance.
Mrs. Shandel says the two men her husband had dropped off to do a simple chore made her very, very apprehensive. And they didn't seem eager to get to work, as Juan Orr went on and on and on about how he and his "brother" were orphans and how their mother had died from methamphetamine.
Emergency room nurses and doctors are always getting hustled by drug people trying to get the good dope, the pharmaceutical stuff. Emergency room people have heard every hype story there is.
Mrs. Shandel was not fooled by Juan Orr. She immediately pinned him as a nut, perhaps even a dangerous a nut.
So, when Tim Gitchel and his friend Thomas Valdez unexpectedly appeared at the Shandels as Juan Orr was rattling on, Mrs. Shandel made it clear that she'd be big time relieved if Gitchel and Valdez would drive her two visitors somewhere else, preferably somewhere far enough away to prevent them from coming back.
Gitchel and Valdez quickly informed Mrs. Shandel that Orr was a stalker of the neighborhood girl, and that Juan and his pal were not brothers, and that their mother had not died of a methamphetamine overdose, and that Juan Orr was not welcome anywhere in Albion. Juan Orr was really a kind of free floating nutcase. And if the guy with him was voluntarily associated with Juan Orr he was undoubtedly also not the kind of guy you'd want sitting down at the dinner table with you.
Orr and his “brother” were told they had to leave. Gitchel said they could either walk or he and Valdez would give them a ride.
As it happened, since Orr and his “brother” were no longer welcome anywhere in Albion, and Gitchel was going to Boonville…
Orr and “his brother” were not forced or otherwise coerced into Gitchel's vehicle. They asked for a lift and they got one. And to them, as transients, Boonville was as good a destination as any other.
A word about Tim Gitchel and Thomas Valdez. They are not thugs. Gitchel leads the marine rescue section of the Albion Fire Department and is a volunteer fireman. He's a gifted athlete and a highly regarded member of the Albion community, who goes out of his way to mentor young people.
Thomas Valdez's bona fides are similarly impressive. From all accounts he's a good guy who works on a tuna fishing boat out of Fort Bragg.
Valdez and Gitchel are not driving around Mendocino County mugging hitchhikers.
And here they were two Saturdays ago under arrest and in the County Jail charged with a major crime.
Now it was Albion's turn to be disbelieving.
The Gitchel-Valdez support networks kicked in.
Tim Gitchel was released on Tuesday, Thomas Valdez on Wednesday.
All charges were dropped.
No one knows where Juan Orr is.
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